Uighur wives of Pak traders vanish in China security net

islamabad — Every autumn on the mountainous Karakoram Highway, groups of Pakistani merchants living in China’s far west would wave goodbye to their Chinese wives and cross the border to spend winter in their home country.

As the snow piled high, the men would stay in touch with their families by phone, longing for the spring thaw that would allow them to be reunited in Xinjiang.

But last year many of their calls suddenly went unanswered.

Their families, they learned, had disappeared into a growing network of shadowy “reeducation centres” that have swept up the region’s Uighur Muslim minority over fears of militancy crossing the border from Pakistan.

“My wife and kids were taken away by the Chinese authorities in March last year and I haven’t heard from them since,” said Iqbal, a Pakistani businessman who declined to give his surname over concern about his family’s safety.

Last July, he headed to China to find them, but was turned away at the border. Authorities “said my wife was in ‘training’ and the government was taking care of my kids”, he said.

“I begged them to let me talk to my daughters, but they refused.”

Iqbal is one of dozens of merchants from Gilgit-Baltistan who return to Pakistan for visa reasons or to run their businesses and have been unable to contact their Uighur families living in China, according to Javed Hussain, a member of the local assembly for the Pakistani region that borders Xinjiang.

Earlier this month, the delegates passed a unanimous resolution protesting the “illegal detention” of the men’s families.

“The Chinese authorities should at least allow the men to meet their wives and children,” Hussain said.

“China is our friend and this incident will leave a bad taste.”

China’s foreign ministry said that the “two sides are maintaining communication about problems related to interactions between both countries’ people”, while Pakistan’s said the issue was being “actively discussed with the government of China”.

Like many of the men, Iqbal’s family lived in Kashgar, an ancient city along the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a trade route connecting China’s far west to the Arabian Sea port of Gwadar.

Chinese authorities have long linked their crackdown on Xinjiang’s Muslims to international counter-terrorism, arguing that separatists are bent on joining foreign extremists like Al Qaeda.

Iqbal and the other Pakistani men believe their wives — and even business associates — have been targeted because they received calls and messages from Pakistan.

“Any communication from Pakistan is considered a threat,” said Qurban, a businessman who has worked in Kashgar for over 30 years. “One of my employees, a Uighur, was picked up two years back just because he was in touch with me when I went to Pakistan.”

Chinese authorities have denied the existence of reeducation centres. But regulations against extremism adopted by Xinjiang last March call for authorities to step up political reeducation. —